Shoppers jammed roads and parking lots, lined up outside stores for hours before dawn and mobbed checkouts yesterday to snap up deep discounts on home electronics, toys and apparel.
Hoping to defy predictions of weak holiday sales, retailers heavily promoted to lure the hordes of shoppers that typically make the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday season, the busiest shopping day of the year. The strategy worked - at least for the kickoff day to a frenetic four weeks in which retailers can reap a third of their annual sales and half their profits.
Shoppers lined up outside Arundel Mills at 3 a.m., waiting to buy discounted dolls and games at Kaybee Toys at 5 a.m. Customers with armloads of sweaters and jeans stood a dozen deep at Sears, Roebuck and Co. checkouts in White Marsh, while lines of shoppers buying DVDs, DVD players and televisions snaked around Best Buy in Columbia. Crowds filled the Discovery Channel store in Harborplace, buying Kick Discs - hockey disks that float on air - and remote-controlled Z-Cars.
"It's fun. It's a tradition," said Jan Veader, 47, of Overlea, who started her 16th straight Black Friday at Wal-Mart in White Marsh at 6 a.m., where she grabbed a $24 bicycle for her 3-year-old grandson. "I never even fell asleep last night, I was so keyed up. It's the hunt - and a way to save some money."
Veader and her son, Ricky, 19, were heading to Kmart next, for discounts on 14-karat gold earrings and Martha Stewart towels, then to J.C. Penney Co. for pants.
"It's the only time I like shopping," Ricky Veader said. "It's like a military operation. You have your primary objective and your secondary objective."
In the wake of consumer concern over the economy and potential war, retailers have said they expect to slash prices, step up customer service and offer more one-of-a-kind or private label merchandise to set themselves apart from competitors, and to drive sales.
Although sales did improve in October, they did so after disappointments in August and September at many of the biggest U.S. chains, leaving the outlook uncertain for the holiday season. But retail experts believe consumers will spend if they can be motivated, because disposable income has increased and refinancing has put more money in consumers' pockets.
"I think the sales numbers will be good," said Scott Krugman, a spokesman for the National Retail Federation. "Consumers have been coming out of their shells, and consumer confidence is going up."
